India's creative industries, seen more as a symbolic representation of the country's cultural identity and diversity, are fast emerging as potent contributors to business growth.

India's creative industries, seen more as a symbolic representation of the country's cultural identity and diversity, are fast emerging as potent contributors to business growth.

The creative economy, which straddles a wide range of goods and services from arts and crafts to audio visuals, design, performing arts, is seeing huge growth in specific sectors such as media and entertainment, which is expected to reach Rs 738 billion in 2011, up from 652 billion in 2010, according to a FICCI-KPMG report released earlier this year.

The textile and apparel industry, of which the country's fashion industry is an integral part, is expected to contribute 5% to India's GDP and 20% to the country's total export earnings, according to data sourced from Technopak.

"The notion that creativity can have an absolute value is yet to be seriously considered in India. In fact, innovation has an impact on everything we do and on every industry, from automobiles to communications," said Sonia Manchanda, who leads one of India's largest integrated design practices, Idiom Designs.

As the entire focus in a creative venture is on the individual's creativity, the larger public tends to ignore the business side of the enterprise, said Rwituja Gomes Mookherjee, British Council's Head of Creative Economy for India and Sri Lanka. "A business that can be easily translated into numbers and figures, which is not possible in a creative venture, is more easily understood by people," she added.

As creative start-ups mushroom across India's services sector, the country has an opportunity to improve its ranking of fifth among developing nations, in the export of visual arts, well below its Asian neighbours, China and Singapore, according to an UNCTAD report.

However, creative entrepreneurs in India are yet to scale the heights of their western counterparts. Barring Idiom Designs, which has had Kishore Biyani's Future Group investing in it, and Foley Designs, in which Technopak pumped in money, few ventures in the creative segment have been able to raise risk capital, which, according to entrepreneurs, is a prerequisite for achieving scale.

"The industry, as a whole, hasn't gotten much attention from the venture capital players so far. But the creative industry has to play a more prominent role as well. We have to ensure greater awareness of disruptive new ideas and innovation," Idiom's Manchanda said.

India Emerging profiles upcoming entrepreneurs who are making a mark in some of the creative industries.

Publishing

Cinnamon Teal, a Goa-based venture that works with authors to self-publish their work, originated as an online bookstore for used books. Founded by Leonard Fernandes and his wife Queenie Fernandes, Cinnamon Teal was launched in August 2007, as they received a number of queries from wannabe authors. Cinnamon Teal offers end-to-end publishing services, including pre-publishing editing, proof reading, cover design and the actual printing.

Leonard said authors opt to self-publish when they want complete control over the publishing process.

"The author has the final say and all rights rest with him, unlike in a normal publishing house where the rights are with the publisher," said Leonard. Cinnamon Teal charges a fixed fee per service provided, which can range from 85 per page edited to 5,000 for the cover design, and has published the works of almost 200 individual authors, many of them from abroad.

They have also ventured out into publishing vernacular works and e-books.

Leonard wants Cinnamon Teal to continue to be a boutique publishing house so he can take up interesting projects such as the one he did recently for London's School of Oriental and African Studies, where he digitised a Portuguese text on Catholic Teachings that was published in Goa in the 1600s.

Design

After a decade long stint at Titan, Abhijit Bansod, a NID-Ahmedabad graduate, decided to venture out on his own with wife and colleague, Amrita Bansod, and set up Studio ABD in 2008.

The design studio marries Indian traditional design sensibilities with technology and works for clients like Hindustan Unilever, Colgate, Coca Cola, Tanishq and Reckitt Benckiser.

Abhijit's ambition is to take Indian design beyond the image of a Hindu god on a T-shirt.

"I want to change the mindset of 'designed in California and made in China' to 'designed and made in India'," said Abhijit, who as Creative Head of Titan Brands was responsible for the launch of Titan's luxury women's watch brand, Raga.

The design studio's Halo Lamp, created for BPL Industries, won the prestigious Red Dot design award in 2010. The firm, which had a turnover of Rs 65 lakh last financial year and is on target to reach a turnover of Rs 1.2 crore in FY 2011-12, has also ventured beyond the typical design studio brief of providing services to clients. They have launched a line of home decor products that are distributed through Store ABD in Bangalore.

Digital Media

TouchMagix is led by Anup Tapadia, who bagged two masters degrees in Computer Science by the time he turned 21, and was the world's youngest professional to pass the Microsoft certifications. Incorporated in 2009, TouchMagix offers a variety of interactive display solutions by combining advanced optical hardware sensor with sophisticated movement recognition software.

Close to 80% of the company's business comes from outside the country, with core markets being Japan, Latin America and the United States. "We are a blend of art and technology. Creativity is how you drive experience in an intuitive way, and we want to create a technology experience for consumers," Tapadia said. Tapadia is hoping to source risk capital to fund acquisitions in six months time.

Fashion and apparel

Delhi-based coutourist Gaurav Gupta's label Akaaro has been making waves ever since its launch four years ago.

A finalist at British Council's Young Creative Entrepreneur Fashion Award in 2010, Gupta has been steadily increasing his customer base in countries such as Japan and the United States. He expects to open his second flagship store in Delhi soon.